Moguls - Absorbing the Bumps

Single Compression Turns If you stood one day and looked up at a mogul field you’d usually see 20% of skiers struggling, 60% of skiers getting down ok with not too much trouble and about 20% which you look at and think ‘I wish I could do it like that’. Usually the 20% of good skiers who stand out from the rest do so because they actually absorb the moguls.

Basically when you absorb the bump your upper body remains up right in balance and your legs flex up usually to the height of the bump. Then as you're going down the backside of the bump you uncoil and push out your legs, creating a fiction that controls your speed.

Absorbing the bump if you think of it holistically is a pretty difficult thing to do and the success rate isn’t very high. There is always so much to think about in moguls and trying to make new technical manoeuvres as well as all the rest is hard. What you need to do is break down the turns a bit. Firstly, if you can’t do it take it out side of the difficult terrain.

Find a comfortable piste and practice making a single compression turn. Its almost opposite to the type of turn you normally make on piste. On piste there’s usually an extension of the legs to initiate. Here you actually flex and pull your feet up underneath you as you start the turn. Progressively pulling them up until the halfway point of the turn when you start to extend them back out again.

Sometimes a great way to help yourself feel it is by using some of the mountains natural terrain. You can just simply ski towards the hump or hip on the slope and go through the same process. As with the moguls try to keep your upper body travelling on the same level and let your legs flex up to absorb. Eventually with practice on these little humps to should be able to have a good enough range of movement to keep the upper body at the same level and soak up the whole height of the hump.

Move on to linking your compression turns together on piste. Make sure that the absorbing movement your making is that of the heel of the feet tucking up behind you and not your backside just sitting back. It essential you get this right at this stage as when you take it into a mogul field you’ll need to be in centre balance and ready the next 30 turns, not just getting pushed back and accelerating out after one. Once you can feel it right and feel your maintaining balance with the hips over the ball of the feet, progressively increase the range of your absorbing movement.

Compression turns are a great practice and skill development exercise to give you first a better understanding of actually how to absorb and secondly allow you to build up skill and confidence before hitting the bumps. 

Related content